Got Books? Conversations with Booksellers

There is only one English-language bookshop in Dakar, Senegal and it's called Chez Alpha Books. Initially located inside the owner's garage, it turned into an independent bookshop with a rich and diverse collection of fiction and non-fiction, with a particular focus on writers from Senegal, other parts of Africa and diaspora but also international classics. The bookshop doubles as a library service, a summer reading camp for children who want to learn English, a college test prep centre and study abroad counseling.

Educator, artist, and activist Angela Franklin is the founder of Chez Alpha Books and our guest today. Originally from the US, Angela has more than 20 years of experience in higher education administration. Chez Alpha Books was born out of calamity: her studio in Baltimore burned down and she was forced to start over. Angela is making history and we're very honoured to have her in our podcast today as a beacon of inspiration.

Books recommended by Angela:

The Snowy Day, by Ezra Keats

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou

Sisters and Champions: The True Story of Venus and Serena Williams, by Howard Bryant

The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers, by Bridgett M. Davis

A Velocity of Being: Letters to A Young Reader, by Maria Popova & Claudia Bedrick

The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria, by Alia Malek

The Hundred Wells of Salaga: A Novel, by Ayesha Harruna Attah

Of Women and Frogs, by Bisi Adjapon

The Mermaid of Black Conch, by Monique Roffey

Segu, by Maryse Condé

Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 

Everfair: A Novel, by Nisi Shawl 

In Pursuit of Disobedient Women: A Memoir of Love, Rebellion, and Family, Far Away, by Dionne Searcey

Black Tudors: The Untold Story, by Miranda Kaufmann

Senegal: Modern Senegalese Recipes from the Source to the Bowl, by Pierre Thiam

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, by James McBride

Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter, by J. Nozipo Maraire

The Third Life of Grange Copeland, by Alice Walker

Located in Chelsea, London, John Sandoe Books has books on every available surface and nook over three floors and three shops. The 18th-century Georgian premises have been home to this beloved bookshop since 1957. A former newsagent and tobacconist, John Sandoe Books locked the spirit of the 50s inside and remained faithful to its ethos and passionate dedication to great books. A testament to the quality of the spread is its clientele, from Elton John and Mick Jagger to Edna O’Brien and William Boyd.

Our guests today are Arabella Friesen and Johnny de Falbe, partners both in life and in bookselling. Johnny took over the shop from bookselling legend John Sandoe in 1986, together with Stewart Grimshaw. Their love of books transpires not only in the books they select and sell but also in their conversations with authors and readings they do on the John Sandoe Books podcasts. We are happy to have them as guests today and to find out the secret of John Sandoe Books' longevity and charm.

Books recommended by Arabella & Johnny:

Nostalgia, by Mircea Cartarescu

The Enchanted Night: Selected Tales, by Miklos Banffy

The Hare with Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal

Good Behaviour, by Molly Keane

Berlin diaries, 1940-1945, by Marie Vassiltchikov

Ghostwritten, by David Mitchell 

My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante

A Wartime Childhood (When I Was Young), by Rebecca Hunter

'Chips': the diaries of Sir Henry Channon, by Henry Channon

Letters to Camondo, by Edmund de Waal

If you ever find yourself in Cotroceni, one of Bucharest's oldest neighbourhoods, you might walk right past the Asteroid B612, a small children bookshop that opened just before 2020 started -  and against all odds, it's thriving. It's no small victory in a country where few independent bookshops exist. It's a bookshop like a living room where you are allowed to draw on the walls and where a unicorn head is presiding (the unicorn's name is Claire, by the way).

The vibrant atmosphere and great selection of books are all Ana's doing, the owner of Asteroid B612 and our guest today. Ana Sipciu used to work for Google and decided to open a children's bookshop on a whim, driven by the memory of the safe haven books provided for her when she was a child. We're very excited to have her today as our guest, talk about her journey and find out what kids are reading nowadays.

Books recommended by Ana:

Alice in Wonderland

Legendele Olimpului

Ciresarii

One Hundred Years Of Solitude

American Gods

The Discworld Atlas

Antifragile

Teoria apropierii

You will not go inside the Monkey's Paw to find a book, but a book you never knew existed will find you. This Toronto bookshop is home to the beautiful, the arcane, and the absurd. Bread sculpture, outer space humour, wild-animal celebrities, useful drugs and guides on how to hate Toronto are all things you can find inside the pages of Monkey's Paw's books, all dated before 1980. And the cherry on top is a custom-made BiblioMat, a vending machine that spits out a randomly selected vintage volume in exchange for a token.

Owner Stephen Fowler, our guest today, originally thought the BiblioMat could just be a refrigerator box where a skinny assistant would drop books out when people put a coin in - we are happy with how things turned out though. Stephen learned the tricks of the trade from a high-end antiquarian in San Francisco, collected inspiration and acquired a nose for the finer oddities from old bookshops and in 2007, poured it all into the Monkey's Paw. We are delighted to have him today on Got Books? and discuss the Monkey's Paw dreamscape.

There is a pair of lemon trees outside the Desperate Literature multilingual bookshop in Madrid and you could say that if God gave them lemons, owners Terry and Charlotte made a damn good lemonade with this literary haven. In their own words, Desperate Literature sells books. Real books. Desperate ones. Paper and glue. But actually, Desperate Literature is also a community, event space, a publishing house, and a home.

That's right, self-diagnosed book fanatics Terry Craven and Charlotte Delattre live above and in the vicinity of the bookshop. They both worked at the world-famous Paris bookshop Shakespeare and Company for a few years before opening Desperate Literature, inviting Madrilenos, travelers and unidentified walk-ins to write a poem on their vintage typewriter or take a shot of whiskey with a book purchase. We chat with Terry and Charlotte today to find out about the joys and despairs of their lives as booksellers.

Find us on social media @gotbookspodcast

Books recommended by Charlotte and Terry:

Rinko Kawauchi: Illuminance;

The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolano;

Conversations With Friends, by Sally Rooney;

Room to Dream, by David Lynch;

Rainbow Milk, by Paul Mendez;

The Argonauts, by Maggie Nelson;

On the Road, by Jack Kerouac;

Selected Poems of Sylvia Plath;

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Got Books? is a podcast for those who love getting lost in (and among) books. For those who appreciate the comfort of a bookshop, the smell of a new book and the story of an old one. It's a podcast with those making this possible: the booksellers.

We chat to bookshop owners all around the world to find out: Is owning a bookshop as romantic as we might imagine? How are the books on the "staff picks" table selected and what influences our reading choices? How does a bookshop survive in the age of the Internet? Is Orwell right: are bookshops "a kind of paradise where charming old gentlemen browse eternally among calf-bound folios"?

Full disclaimer: (at least) one of this podcast's two gentlewomen plans to one day, in the not so distant future, open her own bookshop. So to some extent these conversations are also research. The kind of research others may enjoy too.

In the heart of Neukölln, Berlin’s famed bohemian Babylon of a neighbourhood lies Curious Fox, a small bookshop with a big atmosphere. Curious Fox is a cultural refuge for those native English speakers or English language lovers when things get lost in translation. This seven-year old bookshop sells a new & used selection of English-language fiction, bookish accessories, tea and coffee. Curious Fox tells its own story with poetry and music nights, welcoming to rowdy and delicate souls alike.

Owners Orla Baumgarten and David Gordon met in a bookshop in Berlin. Originally from Ireland and with a background in history of science and film, they started Curious Fox with no previous experience in bookselling, learning on the job. The books they sell are as interesting as the people who buy them in. We’re very excited to have David on our podcast tell us about the secret life of the Curious Fox.

Find us on social media @gotbookspodcast

Books recommended by David

Leonard and Hungry Paul, by Ronan Hession

Debt, Updated And Expanded: The First 5000 Years, by David Graeber

Conversations With Friends & Normal People, by Sally Rooney

The Parker Series, by John Connolly

This is the first episode of Got Books?, a podcast for those who love getting lost in (and among) books. For those who appreciate the comfort of a bookshop, the smell of a new book and the story of an old one. It's a podcast with those making this possible: the booksellers. We will be interviewing bookshop owners all around the world and for our very episode we travelled to Scotland. 

In the south-west parts of Scotland lies Wigtown, a small town where 1,000 people live and 10,000 visit every year. Wigtown is Scotland’s National Booktown, a title won in 1999 that has not only turned it into a tourist attraction, but gave a complete makeover to the local economy. Down Main Street, in a millennium-old Georgian building, behind a forest green door guarded by two spiralling book columns you will find The Bookshop, Scotland’s largest second-hand book shop. Nine rooms, a mile of shelving, 100,000 books. Straight out of a fairy tale, the Bookshop has hidden nooks and crannies, a staircase door, a creaky old floor showing off scars from when it used to be a grocery store back in the 50’s and of course, a resident cat.

Much of its charm has been crafted or preserved by its current owner and our guest today, Shaun Bythell. Shaun has been the owner of The Bookshop since 2001 and has since published three delectable books of wry observations from his perspective as a bookseller, which have only increased the notoriety of his bookshop: The Diary of a Bookseller, Confessions of a Bookseller and Seven Kinds of People You Find in a Bookshop. We couldn’t have wished for a more fitting first guest to our podcast. Without further ado, Shaun Bythell.

Find us on social media @gotbookspodcast

Books recommended by Shaun

A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole

The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger